back so soon?

I assumed I wouldn't post again while in Tanzania, but it turns out I had to get to the internet today to email some pictures for the construction, and it is taking terribly long for the email to send. So in the meantime, here I am blogging.
This morning I was at the new house taking measurements for the security gate and having a hilarious time trying to talk with the plumbers about our water situation. Today I really wished I had been more dedicated to learning swahili this summer.
Once this silly email sends I will be off again to pick up a washing machine in town somewhere. I have yet to figure out who I can hire to bring it to the new land. I also have yet to get the keys from Winfrida to get it inside the house and hook it up. Obstacles here are endless.
Then I need to get the results from the cute little stool sample. Cecilia is already being treated for worms in case they find any, but if all goes well there will be no little creatures to be found. I am truly excited to be done dealing with such samples for a while. Maybe forever.
Hopefully after that I will be back at the apartment, where I will make my last savory meal from home, a box of macaroni and cheese. Mmmmmm. I will probably eat it and pass out because last night I was troubled by nightmares of little Joquiem dying. He has malaria right now. I woke up in sweats and couldn't really get back to sleep. Everyone who is reading this please keep him in your thoughts.
Matt has gone on safari for the next two days, so I am on my own with the job of finishing all the necessary tasks for the big move on Monday. It's been really difficult to find anyone who knows anything about moving the water tanks. I think it is a great possibility that Matt will return to find that I have finally gone completely insane. It's bound to happen sometime soon; I've slowly been losing my marbles as I've tried to get things done on Tanzania Time.
Okay, I miss everyone and hope you are all well. Can't wait to have some good news to post. I would love to be so lucky as to see all of the kids on their first day in their new house. Really I am not the one who deserves that satisfaction as there are many people who have put in a lot more work, but it would still be a dream come true.
Time to go pick up Tobidina and get that washing machine. FUN!

Cecilia

How do you put an entire week here into words without spending all your life’s savings at the internet café? I guess I might be putting some children through college today.

So far this trip has been exactly what I expected in that everything is unexpected. You can plan for nothing and bank only on the fact that you will be stressed, frustrated, scared, and tired. Oh, and you will DEFINITELY be loved. Anyway, we went to St. Lucia first thing Wednesday morning to find all of the kids waiting for us; Tobidina had told them I was coming. Needless to say, it was a happy reunion.

It’s such an extraordinary feeling to be walking on the other side of the world and to recognize the sounds and smells. I had to pause outside the gate at St. Lucia just to listen for the laughter that I’ve missed so much. Everyone was there except for James and Bariki, who were at school. We hit a stroke of luck in that everyone else is on holiday. Some of the children seem exactly the same, like James, who has not grown at all. But others, like Connie, have aged years in the seven months I’ve been away. Even little Hilda looks like she’s caught up an inch. Gertruda is growing in her big front teeth - just another depressing reminder that she is getting older while I am not there. Matt was an immediate hit with Moody, who seems much more comfortable now and not at all homesick. He’s still the cuddly little monkey who likes to give kisses and be held, but he has developed a mischievous laugh and a taste for danger.

We were so overwhelmed with happy children that it must have been and hour before I truly noticed Cecilia, a new child at St. Lucia who stands out from the rest. She is nine years old, and she just lost her mother to AIDS last April. She is the saddest child I’ve ever known. In general, when I think of St. Lucia, I think of a happiness that is unparalleled by children in the States. The kids here are so eager to be loved and to give you their love in return. They offer themselves without reservation or qualification of our worth. We are their heroes just for holding their hands. But Cecilia has brought me back to Earth and challenged my idealist fantasy that maybe these children really could conquer all of the sadness that they are dealt. Cecilia is a constant reminder that no matter what we have done, it is never enough. The pain of their loss will always be present; some just hide it better than others. Having just lost her mother, Cecilia sticks to herself and does not play with the other children. She stays outside when we are in and she sneaks inside when we are out. I believe she is hesitant to let anyone else love her or make her feel happy because she feels loyalty to her mother. She has had no opportunity to grieve or cry, and on top of that, she has been frighteningly ill since she arrived at St. Lucia.

On my first day, she spent the entire afternoon crying and moaning in bed. She would not eat, and she vomited all over the floor. I tried to sing her to sleep and cradle her, but you could feel her fear of my touch and I was unsure of whether I was really helping her at all. At times she would scream out “Mama, Baba” and I truly felt that she was just praying to be with them. I saw no will to live in her eyes, only deep tragedy and a sadness that I hope I never have to understand. I asked about her health and was told that she has been hospitalized for stomach problems about seven times and will probably need surgery, but right now she is too weak to survive going under the knife. I wanted to take her to the hospital right then, but I was assured that she would improve, and by the next day she had. However, over the next few days I did not see her eat at all and I could not understand how she would ever get stronger. On Sunday the Doctor came again and said that she must be rushed to the hospital. I got a taxi and went to pick up Matt, and we were on our way. Cecilia was given an enema and we were told that if she was not better in the morning we would have to take her to Moshi for surgery. It was more than a little eerie to be back in the AICC hospital, the very hospital in which I was a patient just a little over a year ago. Alison, if you are reading, I literally got nauseous whenever a nurse came in the room, fearing someone would recognize me and call me “mtoto”(baby). But don’t worry, we managed to piss them off and further promote the American image even without their recognition of me and my hallucinations.

The night creeped on, and we prepared for the probable journey to Moshi in the morning. The children’s ward was empty except for a 2-year-old boy and his mother. Little Hassan was suffering from malaria, and because of that, Matt and I were suffering too. Mom, remember the story you always tell me about my ear infection on the airplane? Hassan has to beat me. He screamed and cried ALL NIGHT. On top of that, his mother was prone to long, loud phone conversations at all hours of the evening. I think Matt was bewildered, but I was truly amused by the difference between our two cultures. In America, we would have run to complain and switch rooms. Here, in a Tanzanian hospital, everyone experiences everyone else’s pain. Hassan’s mother had no qualms about stripping and changing her clothes in front of us. The nurses did not think twice about probing a tube several feet into Cecilia’s body (sorry for being so crude) in front of Hassan and his mother. The lack of privacy here is not really a lack at all because privacy is not an expectation or a right.

The upshot to the cramped quarters is that a sense of camaraderie quickly develops within the ward. I painted Hassan’s mother’s toenails and she borrowed our phone charger (all those phone calls take a toll on the battery!). We tried to give Hassan a lion stuffed animal, but he screamed in fear. We stuck with candy instead to avoid unnecessary tears and torture on our ears. Hassan’s mother spoke no English, but we shared a common compassion for each other’s situation and a similar sense of sympathy.

Anywayyyyyyyyy, I have to say I was somewhat grateful for the acoustics of Hassan. I spent the night in bed with Cecilia and learned quickly that I would not be sleeping at all. Each time I got tired, Hassan lent me a hand with his screams. The nurse came in to inject him at some point (we had no way of telling time), and that gave me a much-needed jolt of adrenaline as I remembered the pain of my own treatment last year. Meanwhile, Cecilia got worse again - to the point that I dared to disturb the sleeping nurse. I challenged the culture here in demanding to see the Doctor, who was peacefully asleep in his office. My efforts were in vain. The only result was yet another enema. But this time Cecilia seemed to feel a little better, and I was able to stop her crying if I held her to my chest and sang. We stayed that way for a long time, me rubbing her back and her rubbing mine. I realized that she was opening up to me; if I got up to use the “bathroom” or to go get the nurse she would cry out for me. I talked to her about her mom and told her it was okay to cry. She is a very smart girl, and she understands a lot of English despite the fact that she doesn’t talk much. I said a prayer with her for her mother, and she finally fell asleep. I continued to rub her back, and I found myself counting her vertebrae. That is how emaciated she is. Her stomach is distended and her limbs are like pencils. All I could think about was how she would survive surgery when she seems to be starving. I was able to convince the nurse to give her an IV because she was still vomiting anything we gave her to eat. Everything here seems to just rest on hope. There is so little anyone can actually do; Matt and I felt paralyzed as we watched Cecilia cry.

Around six am I finally snuck out of Cecilia’s bed and into the vacant bed next to her. Hassan was finally sleeping, which meant that Matt and I had a fair shot at getting some real rest. With a few more loud phone calls we struggled to sleep, and at 8am we admitted defeat when the nurse came in ringing a bell and telling the white people to get out of the patient beds. Oops. Sorry, we’re American? Cecilia slept a little longer and was able to eat in the morning. We took her into town for an x-ray to see if she had an obstruction in her intestines. The ambulance took us and the hospital sent someone in with us who conveniently disappeared once Cecilia was being x-rayed. We left the office to find that the ambulance had abandoned us, just another inconvenience we were not prepared for. Fortunately, being white, people are eager to offer you taxi rides, so I went to the bank to get more money (it only took 4 ATMs to find one that worked), and we got a ride back to the hospital at last.

The x-ray showed no obstruction, and we were told by the doctor that she is suffering from a severe build-up of gas. It could be from worms or vitamin deficiencies, but no one seemed to take much interest in discovering its cause despite the fact that she has been hospitalized with this problem seven times in the past few months. We were told that the pediatrician from the government hospital was going to come at two to see Cecilia and give a second opinion. Great, only three more hours and we could get something done. Two o’clock came and went, as did three and four and five. The Doctor was there, but she seemed irritated that we had asked her to look at Cecilia so she took each incoming patient she could before seeing Cecilia. She saw outpatients, she read newspapers, and she socialized. The other doctors were nowhere to be found and we were on a short leash with the nurses by this point. Matt and I looked like we’d been hit by a truck after the night before, and all we wanted was to see something done. Finally, around 6, we saw the pediatrician, only to hear that yes, it is gas. I asked her to do a stool sample to test for worms or bacteria, but I guess she again wasn’t interested. The nurses did one more enema for good measure and we were sent on our way. By this point, the pharmacy was closed and we could not even get Cecilia’s medicine until the next day. I convinced the nurse to give me a container for a stool sample, which I am bringing back to the hospital tomorrow to get tested. To make an EXTREMELY long and exhausting story a little shorter, we were discharged by 8 and we took Cecilia home. She was tired, but she complained of no pain and even seemed happy to be back at St. Lucia. Who wouldn’t be after a night of anal probing? And let’s not forget our friend Hassan, who I think we got to know much better than we ever wanted.

The next day, I picked up Cecilia’s meds and said hello to Hassan, who has yet to be discharged. We got to St. Lucia to find Cecilia up and about. I even caught her with a smile on her face when we walked in. It was as if she was a child again. Getting a smile out of her is so difficult that when it happens it feels like you’ve won the lottery. We had tried everything at the hospital from talking stuffed animals to funny faces, but she had no smiles to offer. In the past few months it seems Cecilia has lost touch with her imagination. I hope I can help her to find it again. She has grown up far too fast. There are no words I can use to portray the look of devastation in her eyes, but looking at her at times makes you feel extremely young and unknowing. It was such a reward to see her smile after so much sadness. She gave me a hug; she even told me she loved me. I was able to get her to eat with everyone else and to take part in our nail polish party. I hope that when I leave she does not regress. It’s not to make myself seem more important than I am, but I just fear that if I am the first person she is letting in, and I am leaving so soon, I may do her more harm than good.

Everything is like that here. Yesterday, I walked by some street kids who were begging for food. My mind did somersaults as I fought the urge to just give them the money in my pockets. I remembered a sign I saw once that said “Give a street child food today, and tomorrow there’ll be 10 more.” Even still, in moments like these how can you look past the primary need of the child in front of you. Should not you help one rather than none? I had to remind myself of everything I have come to believe about development and sustainability, though it was of little help to my conscience as I walked by those children with their empty hands. I couldn’t even look back; I just picked up my step and rushed back to our apartment where there was a refrigerator of food awaiting me.

I really don’t know how much more I can write. There are so many little details that I want to share with my family before I forget, but sometimes even the recall is exhausting. I feel I should at least end on a positive note and say that our prospects are good for making the big move to the new house next week. I spoke to the nurses about it so that they will be prepared to move on Monday. Unfortunately, the kids overheard me. They were jumping up and down with excitement, so now the pressure is really on. Matt and I have our work cut out for us.

Maybe in Cape Town I’ll sit down and share more of the pleasant anecdotes from this past week. The Cecilia story is just what is most piercing in my mind. So if you are reading this, try to picture the laughter and the joy that greatly outweighs the pain and the stress of the hospital experience. Picture me with Gertruda, and her telling me that she wants to come to America with me, and you’ll have a better idea of just how happy and heartbroken I feel all at once. It is awful to know that I cannot take any of them home, but it is uplifting to feel their excitement in the time we have together. So I need to stop writing about it, and go enjoy it. Or maybe sleep, because I am exhausted.

AHHHHH!

I leave in exactly 2 hours for Tanzania! My suitcases are still overweight, I am still wearing pajamas, and I am still utterly unsure if I have everything I need. I'm positive that I am not ready to leave the country for over 4 months now that things have finally fallen into place here in NJ. I can't wait to see the kids at St. Lucia again, but I am terrified that I will not be able to accomplish my work there before I have to leave for Cape Town. Mainly, I am afraid I will not get them moved into their new house.
I suppose that for the next two weeks I probably will not be updating this little blog, but you can be sure that when I get to Cape Town I will let you know how everyone is doing at St. Lucia. I'm also going to attempt to jazz up the page a bit, but don't get your hopes up. Let's be honest. I really don't like technology. If I add pictures I'll be happy.
Okay, time to shower. And time to start daying goodbye.

Gertruda, here I come...